Mendelssohn & Co.

Mendelssohn & Co. was a private bank based in Berlin, Prussia. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was one of the preeminent banking houses in Europe.

Former Bankhaus Mendelssohn & Co., Jägerstraße 49–50 near Gendarmenmarkt; built 1891-1893

History

It was established in 1795 by Joseph Mendelssohn in Berlin. In 1804, his younger brother Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy joined the company. In 1815, they moved into their new headquarters at Jägerstraße 51, thereby laying the foundations of Berlin's financial district. Mendelssohn & Co. remained in that building until its divestiture in 1939.

Mendelssohn quickly rose to prominence among European banks. Starting in the 1850s, they acted as Royal bankers for the Russian Tsar, and from the 1870s dominating the Central European financial market for Russian sovereign bonds and railway bonds. Only the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the Lenin putsch in 1917 put an end to these close contacts. The Mendelssohn family through the descendants of the founding brothers continued to run the company.

Mendelssohn & Co. survived the financial meltdown of the 1930s comparatively well. Following the death of Franz von Mendelssohn and Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in 1935, Rudolf Löb was appointed as chairman of the bank, the first non-family member to be chairman. In 1938, under intense pressure of the Nazis' Aryanization policy, Mendelssohn & Co. were forced to hand over their assets to Deutsche Bank, and eventually to shut down.[1]

Notable employees

See also

References
  1. Gall, Lothar & Underwood, J. A. (1999), "Hermann Josef Abs and the Third Reich: 'A man for all seasons'?", Financial History Review, 6 (2): 147–202 [pp. 163–173], doi:10.1017/S0968565000000378.

Further reading
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